6100

Nothing To Hide

By Daniel  /  17 Responses
Never mind that the vast majority of terrorist plots "stopped" by the FBI since 9/11 were plots conceived, orchestrated, and armed by the FBI, carried out by individuals who were coaxed by the FBI into participation — bullied even in some cases — and whom were driven to their targets by the FBI. Never mind that the FBI was surveilling Occupy Wall Street protesters, despite being engaged in Constitutionally-protected speech, or that the FBI has a long history of targeting people for their political speech. Never mind that the DOJ has been surveilling journalists in an effort to prevent them from obtaining leaks, which violates the role of the press as an essential check on government power and infringes upon the Constitutionally-protected freedom of the press. Never mind that the vast majority of Patriot Act data requests are used to investigate drug crimes, not terrorism — 107 times as many, from 2006-2009 alone. Never mind that the War on Drugs is a $1.5 trillion dollar failure that has led to the incarceration of 1 out of every 15 black men in this country. Never mind that when given access to private data, law enforcement has proven itself time and again as incapable of preventing abuses or protecting innocents from harm. Never mind that our elected representatives regularly trade on classified intelligence for their own profit and go out of their way to shield their own personal information from public scrutiny. Never mind that our government routinely fails to prevent attacks, even when it has actionable intelligence. These people trust our government to amass a gigantic database of personal information on civilians suspected of no wrongdoing because only criminals and terrorists have an expectation of privacy. And I think they're idiots. So I made this to mock them. See also: "It is time to stand up and say no" and Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide' Artwork: Surveillance by Will Varner
6100

The Story of Creation

By Daniel
This is the first pass at digitizing one of the filmstrips my wife recently found with Lomography's Smart Phone Film Scanner. "The Story of Creation" is the first in the Picture Stories from the Old Testament series by E.C. Comics founder Max Gaines, based upon his comic book series, Picture Stories from the Bible. The Lomography scanner has its limitations, but it's enough to inexpensively start sharing some of this material and evaluating how to best make use of it. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9 Photo 10 Photo 11 Photo 12 Photo 13 Photo 14 Photo 15 Photo 16 Photo 17 Photo 18 Photo 19 Photo 20 Photo 21 Photo 24 Photo 25 Photo 26 Photo 27 Photo 28 Photo 29 Photo 30 Photo 31 Photo 32 Photo 33 Photo 34 Photo 35 Photo 36 Photo 37 Photo 38 Photo 39 Photo 40 Photo 41 Photo 42 Photo 43 Photo 44 Photo 45 Photo 46 Photo 48
6100

Strip Show

By Daniel
My wife, Morrisa, made a pretty remarkable discovery yesterday in a bin of rummage sale items put out by a local synagogue: An entire box-full of 35mm Jewish educational filmstrips from the 1950s! I feel bizarre having to explain this, but it's 2013, so: Filmstrips were often used in educational settings up until the advent of the VCR and video rentals in the 1980s, when motion pictures finally became affordable for classroom use, but were still common well into the 1990s in less well-to-do school districts. A filmstrip is a long roll of still picture frames, usually accompanied by a written script or an audio recording — in my era, a casette, but in the era of these filmstrips, a 33RPM vinyl record — that one would advance through a projector, frame by frame, at the script or recording's instruction (usually a tone). Here is an example. Sadly, we do not have any of the scripts or audio recordings that would have accompanied these filmstrips — though we are trying to track them down. Nonetheless, they are fantastic artifacts that shine a light on a bygone era in American Jewish life, and which open the door to several creative possibilities which I will explain later. Here's what she found.

Alexark & Norsim

This film producer in Maplewood, NJ, appears to still exist as a Judaica store, though one can find little about them on the Internet apart from their address. The strips feature elaborate drawings of biblical tales and Jewish ritual practices that remind me of the covers of Hardy Boys novels. IMG_1579 IMG_1580 IMG_1582

Jewish Education Committee of N.Y. (The Jewish Education Project)

The Jewish Education Committee of N.Y. was an earlier name of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York and now The Jewish Education Project, the UJA Federation-backed board of education for NYC's Jewish day schools. These filmstrips, of which we appear to have several duplicates, offer lessons on various Jewish holidays and Biblical heroes. They are archived at HUC Cincinnati. IMG_1596 The illustrations are pretty fantastic and have a distinctly 1950s feel to them, as, of course, do the wonderful photographs. IMG_1594 IMG_1595 IMG_1597 IMG_1600 IMG_1601 IMG_1603 This is the prize out of the whole collection from the Jewish Education Committee, however. Your Federation tells the story of how the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York — the precursor to the UJA Federation — is making a difference in the lives of needy Jews. It originally came with an 11 page booklet. Here's the modern equivalent. IMG_1549

S.V.E.

S.V.E. was an early manufacturer of film projectors and film. This collection of filmstrips is called Life of Joseph Series and appears to contain still frames from a film by Cathedral Pictures, a 1930s & 1940s-era Christian film company. IMG_1561 IMG_1564

20th Century Fox

This filmstrip, like the one above, is made up of stills from a motion picture — 20th Century Fox's David and Bathsheba, starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward, and was "contributed...as a public service." This one has text overlaid upon each frame, narrating the story. Amusingly, the film canister had a hand-written label on the side that says, "Not for children!" That warning is likely because of this scene, which perhaps was the public service of which they spoke. This strip is one of the two that turned up a result in my copyright search. IMG_1571 IMG_1573 IMG_1578

The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Union for Reform Judaism)

What I like most about these filmstrips from the Reform movement is the emphasis on the American Jewish experience and diaspora Jewry as opposed to Israel. Oh, how times have changed. IMG_1560 This filmstrip, 300 Years: Memorable Events in American Jewish History, is the second of two strips from this cache that appear to still have an active copyright, and features illustrations of great figures in American Jewish history. IMG_1569 IMG_1570 This one, Around the World with Hebrew, is our favorite visually, as it looks like it was drawn by Shag and reminds me of the 1950s spoof commercials on Ren & Stimpy. It features a man taking children on a flying rocket around the world to visit different Jewish communities, which frankly is famazing. IMG_1588 IMG_1589 IMG_1592 IMG_1593

Educational Comics

This is what I'm most excited about. It appears to be the complete set of Picture Stories from the Old Testament, an adaptation of Picture Stories from the Bible, the comic book series by Maxwell C. Gaines with which he launched Educational Comics, the publisher that would ultimately give the world MAD Magazine and Tales from the Crypt. This series is almost like a proto-G-dcast, boiling Biblical tales down into digestible cartoon entertainment. Also famazing. IMG_1606 IMG_1609 IMG_1610 IMG_1611 IMG_1613 IMG_1615 IMG_1616

The United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education (United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism)

Nothing too special about the bottom two canisters here, but the top two are a filmstrip called "Thus Saith The Lord," featuring a stereotype-fulfilling Jewish main character who looks dark and shifty and big nosed and which also has some spectacularly cheesy Maxwell House Haggadah-style illustrations of a Bar Mitzvah. IMG_1583 IMG_1584 IMG_1585 IMG_1587

The Jewish Agency for Israel

Of course, we can't neglect the Zionist indoctrination aids. These are from the Jewish Agency for Israel, which today is joint partnership between the Jewish Federations of North America and the government of Israel. IMG_1558 IMG_1567 IMG_1566

Film Publishers, Inc. for the Zionist Organization of America

This collection was produced by Film Publishers, Inc., an educational film production company, for the Zionist Organization of America. The ZOA used to be the biggest Zionist organization in the United States, and served as an umbrella for the gamut of Zionist movements, from left-wing socialist to right-wing religious. Now it is one of the most bat-shit crazy extreme right-wing organizations of them all. These filmstrips idealized the development of Israel and promulgated the early myths of Zionism to American Jewish youth. IMG_1556 Of course the film Preparing for Peace was the one that immediately caught my eye. The ZOA? Preparing for peace? LOL. As one might expect, the images seem to depict Israelis coexisting with Arabs. Absent the soundtrack or script, however, it's hard to know exactly what's going on. Could this be the filmstrip forebear of Israel21C? IMG_1563

What next?

I have ordered a 35mm filmstrip projector off of eBay and Lomography's Smartphone Film Strip Scanner. I've come up with two ideas so far for what to do with these strips if they are indeed out of copyright. The first idea is to host filmstrip nights with SyraJews, the local 20s & 30s cohort, where we come up with our own narration for different filmstrips Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style. We could even conceivably break into groups, give each group one strip to come up with a script for, and then perform our scripts for each other, with the top performances winning prizes. The second idea is to create a website to do basically the same thing. The site would provide an interface for viewing the filmstrips as you would traditionally, but would also allow you to record and save your own audio narration for each frame. Users could play back a filmstrip using their own or any other users' publicly shared narrations, and can vote the best narrations to the top, Reddit-style. I'd liken it to "Charlie's Ants," my friend Abram Stern's detournement of a comic book tractate by right-wing protestant proselyte Jack Chick, or Eric Fensler's G.I. Joe PSAs. After all, where's the fun in recovering this material if it's just going to remain as stodgy and unwatchable as it was in 1955? We can preserve it, make it available in the public domain and have a blast remixing it. Got any ideas of your own to share for what to do with this material? Spit it out! And if you're into any of these ideas and would like to help make them happen, whether as a volunteer or as a donor, please be in touch. You can leave a comment below or email me privately here.
6100

My Rosh Hashanah Sermon at #OWS

By Daniel
Today we are here to rejoice and we are here to cry. For as Rebbe Nachman taught, “On Rosh Hashanah you must be joyous… and on Rosh Hashanah you must weep.” We are here to rejoice in the world and in our bodies… To celebrate our very existence. For today, according to Jewish tradition, is humankind’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUMANS!!! Today we celebrate our creation as a species and we celebrate our Creator, the infinite Divine which wills itself into the form of human beings and which breathes into each of us the breath of life, imbuing within each of us a holy spark, intrinsic worth, individual purpose, and inalienable rights. That is why we are so pleased to celebrate tonight with our Jewish and non-Jewish friends alike, because it is not just our birthday as Jewish people, it is all of our birthday together as people, period. Our Rabbis taught that all people are descended from the same source and are all made in the image of the Divine. And thus we are bound together, all of humanity, as one family, responsible to and for one another: And so it is said, “You should love your fellow as yourself.” And that is why were are also here to cry. We cry because, whether individually or communally, we have failed to live up to our best versions of ourselves and to meet our responsibilities to one another. We have failed to be as righteous and just as we each have the potential to be in our words and deeds. We expect better from ourselves and for each other. And so, while we celebrate, we also repent. As we look around the world and we see its fullness and brokenness, its poverty and wealth, its hunger and its greed, its laws and its lawlessness, we know: We are failing to merit the blessing of our Creator. We know that even with all we have accomplished, we are capable of so much more as individuals, as communities and as a species. And so we cry. Because as the Talmud teaches, “When others are suffering, no one should say, ‘I will go home, eat, drink, and be at peace with myself.’” The severity of humanity’s crisis cannot be understated. In Shemot Rabbah we learn, “If all other troubles were placed on one side and poverty on the other, poverty would outweigh them all.” Exodus Rabbah says, “There is nothing in the world more grievous than poverty; it is the most terrible of all sufferings.” And Talmud Nedarim says, “Poverty is a kind of death.” You have likely heard the famous Talmudic teaching, “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” That makes 46.2 million worlds to save in the U.S. alone. How did it come to this? How did we find ourselves here? Through indisputable greed and the hardening of our hearts. The Seridei Eish says, “Exemption from taxes is acceptable only for those taxes established by the government for its own sake, but not those that strengthen the needy.” Yet our politicians continue to lower taxes for the wealthy while slashing social programs that benefit the poor and the working class. It says in Talmud Baba Metzia, “Whoever withholds an employee’s wages, it is as though he has taken the person’s life from him.” And yet we import cheap labor, export jobs to overseas sweat shops, resist minimum wage laws, and attack workers’ collective bargaining rights. The Ben Ish Chai wrote, “It is forbidden to steal or embezzle anything at all–whether of great or little value.” But what of our savings, our pensions, our homes? Will no one be brought to justice for their gain from our losses? Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato wrote that, “Most people are not outright thieves but get a taste of stealing whenever they permit themselves to make an unfair profit at the expense of another.” Talmud Shabbat says, “When one is brought for their final judgement, the heavenly tribunal says to him first, ‘Were you honest in your business dealings?’” What will they ask of our coreligionists, among the executives of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns? Will their sins be overlooked for their sizable contributions to charity? No, says Rambam: “A mitzvah that is done by committing a sin is not a mitzvah.” How many folks here have been told to “get a job and take a shower” when they’ve said they’re an Occupier? Vayikra Rabbah says, “If a rich man says to the poor man, ‘Get a job,’ God says to the rich man, ‘It’s not enough you deprived him, but you mock him too?” In Deuteronomy, we are given warning: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God…Otherwise…when you build fine houses and settle down…and your silver and gold increase…then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God…You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you…wealth.” The Torah reminds us again and again, you did not earn what is yours by your hands alone, you earned it with the blessing of the Creator who also blessed you with the good fortune to be able to share with those in need! Rambam says those who ignore their responsibility to the poor are called “lawless” in the same way that an idol worshipper is called “lawless.” He says, “God is close to the pleas of the poor. Therefore be careful with their cries!” “He who closes his ears to the outcry of the poor, he too will call and not be answered!” But we are not here to call for nor glory in the downfall of our fellow. We do not wish ill upon the wealthy. We are here to rescue them from their fate, which is ours too. Just as our father Abraham sought to rescue Sodom, pleading with the Creator to spare the city its ultimate retribution for its cruelty to the poor, we come to plead for the poor and wealthy alike. As Rebbe Nachman taught, “The purpose of sounding the Shofar is to arouse people from their sleep.” And so we seek to rouse the wealthy with our collective cry. “Our repentance, our mitzvah of listening to the shofar blasts,” said Rebbe Nachman, “arouses Hashem’s pity on us.” And so with the cries of our shofars, we beseech the Creator to have pity and plead for mercy on behalf of the poor and the destitute, on behalf of the worker and the migrant, on behalf of the enslaved and the oppressed, and on behalf of the wealthy who exploit, enslave and oppress, that they may come to repent and be redeemed. Thus we find ourselves here, at Occupy Wall Street. We come here to this seemingly unusual setting on one of the holiest days of the Jewish Year, not only to celebrate, but to “Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy.” We come here to dedicate ourselves to the struggle on behalf of our fellow human beings, to ensure their dignity, to uphold their rights, to pursue justice on their behalf, and to resist the cynicism, callousness, greed and evil exhibited by “those who would devour the needy.” We assemble here to rededicate and renew ourselves, reawaken our spirits, refine our consciousness, reassert our values, clarify our purpose, and to reignite our passion. We have come to renew the world, with a sacred vision for humanity. Rebbe Nachman teaches, “Know that thought is very powerful. If a person concentrates very deeply about something he can bring it about.” And so on Rosh Hashanah, we devote our consciousness to conceptualizing and projecting a vision of the world in which we want to live: A world of justice, kidness, compassion, charity, healing, peace, and loving. Close your eyes and envision a world without want, a world without suffering, a world without pain, a world without inequality, a world without inequity. Hold that vision in your mind. Imprint that vision upon your consciousness. Keep it in your mind when you wake up and when you go to sleep. When you contemplate your interactions with others. When you contemplate your activism and your work on behalf of those in need. When you’re on the barricades tomorrow, tussling with the NYPD. When you’re talking with your partner and your children. With your fellow students and coworkers. With your parents and their cranky, conservative friends. With the conservatives with whom you argue on Facebook. Keep it in mind for as long as you can, with as much intensity as you can, and in spite of every deterrent. Rise to meet that vision. Allow that vision to transform you, to transform the way you interact in the world. To transform the way you interact with yourself. Recognize the Divine in yourself, recognize the Divine in your fellow, celebrate humanity and the dignity of all humans the way you celebrate those dearest to you. And soon you will find that the world will rise to meet your vision. May Hashem bless us with a year of prosperity and peace and the heralding of a new paradigm in which justice reigns supreme. Happy birthday humans! Happy birthday OWS! Happy New Year! Shana tova u’metukah! Chag sameach! Peace, blessings and love to all!
6100

The Final Act

By Daniel

You may ask: Why was the generation of the flood punished when they never received the commandments? It may be suggested that there are certain commandments that people are obligated to observe by force of reason, even if they were never commanded, and therefore they were punished. —Chizkuni, Bereshit 7:21

When that great calamity came upon Job, he said to the Holy One, blessed be He: “Master of the universe, did I not feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty… ? And did I not clothe the naked?” Nevertheless the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Job: ”Job, you have not yet reached even half the measure of Abraham. You sit and stay in your house and the wayfarers come in to you. To him who is accustomed to eat wheat bread, you give wheat bread to eat; to him who is accustomed to eat meat, you give meat to eat; to him who is accustomed to drink wine, you give wine to drink. But Abraham did not act in this way. Instead, he would go out and around everywhere, and when he found wayfarers, he brought them into his house. To him who was unaccustomed to eat wheat bread, he gave wheat bread to eat; to him who was unaccustomed to eat meat, he gave meat to eat; to him who was unaccustomed to drink wine, he gave wine to drink. And more than that, he arose and built large mansions on the highways and left food and drink there, and every passerby ate and drank and blessed Heaven. That is why delight of spirit was given to him. —Avot D’Rebbe Natan

Man was put on earth with a difficult mission — to emulate G-d. “To walk in His ways and to cleave to Him” (Devarim 11:22), the Torah commands. Upon no other creature in Creation does this grand expectation rest. Only man must strive for G-dliness, because he alone is equipped to do so. Only man was created in the image of Hashem. The challenge each person faces in his life is to seek out this element of G-dliness in himself and strengthen it by emulating Hashem’s ways. Acts of chesed are the means to that end. To emulate Hashem, a person must comprehend His nature. Man’s knowledge of Hashem is limited to what he sees of Him in this world; He is the Creator, the Healer, the Protector, the Comforter, the Giver, the Sustainer of all life. “He gives bread to all flesh,” says Tehillim 136:25. Every creature in Creation is sustained by Hashem’s giving hand; there is a form of nourishment and shelter provided for everything from the amoeba to the elephant. Therefore, the most effective way for a person to emulate Hashem is for him to give to and care for others. The more he expresses his desire to do kindness, the more precisely he reflects the image of Hashem. Someone who deludes himself into believing that chesed is an “extra,” something to be avoided if possible, obscures Hashem’s image in himself. He takes himself down from the pedestal upon which Hashem placed mankind — the only creation made in His own image — and sets himself instead among the masses of creatures that roam the earth. Not only does he lose sight of Hashem’s image in himself, he fails to see it in others as well. One who sees other people as a reflection of Hashem naturally feels love and respect for them, and this, in turn, naturally expresses itself in a desire to help others. The person who loves chesed is the person who understands the true greatness of Man and the Source from which this greatness flows. –The Chofetz Chaim, Loving Kindness

It is fitting to receive every person, lowly and grand, freed and slave, every member of the human race, with joy and happiness. This goes beyond what Shammai says (Avot 1:15): “[Receive all people] with a kindly countenance.” —Rambam, Mishna Avot 3:12

Greater is the welcoming of guests than the welcoming of the Shechinah. —Shabbat 172a

“When you see someone naked, cover them.” R. Abba bar Zavda and R. Yohanan [discussed this text.] One said: “One makes exacting inquiries regarding clothing, but not regarding life [i.e. food]. The other said: “Even regarding clothing one is not exacting because of the covenant of our father Abraham.” —Vayikra Rabba 34:14

One gives to a poor person who travels from place to place no less than a loaf of bread worth a dupondium, [made from wheat which costs at least] one sela for four seahs. If the poor person stayed overnight, one gives enough for a night’s lodging, oil, and legumes. [If the poor person] stays for Shabbat, one gives food for three meals, oil, legumes, fish, and a vegetable. To what does this refer? When one does not recognize the poor person, but when one does recognize the poor person, one should even cover the person. —Tosefta Peach, 4:8

The men of Sodom waxed haughty only on account of the good which the Holy One, blessed be He, had lavished upon them…They said: Since there cometh forth bread out of (our) earth, and it hath the dust of gold, why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth. Come, let us abolish the practice of travelling in our land… —Sanhedrin 109a

Rabbi Ze era said: The men of Sodom were the wealthy men of prosperity, on account of the good and fruitful land whereon they dwelt… Rabbi Nathaniel said: The men of Sodom had no consideration for the honour of their Owner by not distributing food to the wayfarer and stranger, but they even fenced in all the trees on top above their fruit so that so that they should not be seized; not even by the bird of heaven… Rabbi Joshua… said: They appointed over themselves judges who were lying judges, and they oppressed every wayfarer and stranger who entered Sodom by their perverse judgment, and they sent them forth naked… —Pirke D’Rebbe Eliezer

[The Sodomites’] intention was to stop people from coming among them, as our rabbis have said, for they thought that because of the excellence of their land… many will come there. And they despised charity… they continued provoking and rebelling against Him with their ease and the oppression of the poor… —Ramban, Bereishit 19:5

So ye shall not Pollute the land Wherein ye are, for blood, it Polluteth the land. —Bamidbar 35:33

He who spills blood in the land defiles the land and drives away the Divine Presence. —Rabbi Yishmael

Love of all beings is also love of G-d, for whoever loves the One loves all the works that He has made. When one loves G-d, it is impossible not to love His creations. The opposite is also true. If one hates His creations, it is impossible to love G-d Who created them. –The Maharal of Prague, Netivot Olam, Ahavat Hare’i

Do not think that you are giving to the poor from your own possession, or that I despised the poor person by not giving them as I gave you. For they are my children, as you are, and their share is in your grain; it is to your benefit to give them their share from your property. —Torat Moshe, Vayikra 19:9

A story is told of Binyamin HaTzaddik, who was the supervisor of his community’s Tzedakah fund. Once, when there was a shortage of food, a woman came to him and said, “Rabbi, feed me!” He replied, “I swear that there is no more money left in the Tzedakah fund.” She said, “If you do not feed me, a woman and her seven children will die.” So he fed her from his own money. —Bava Batra 11a

We Jews have been commanded to rescue the pursued from the hands of any who pursue them with intent to kill, if necessary at the cost of the pursuer’s life…Among the roots of this commandment is that God, Who is Blessed, created the world and willed that it be settled, and the settlement of the world is upheld by the championing of the weak against those stronger. Furthermore, the pursued will always have eyes and heart turned toward God to champion him against his pursuer, as Scripture says, “The Lord will seek out the pursued”- meaning that the pursued seeks the Lord and prays. —Sefer HaChinuch 600

One must put oneself in possible jeopardy in order to save someone whose life is in certain danger [because], “something doubtful cannot outweigh something that is certain.” —Kesef Mishneh, Laws of Murder 1:14

“Do not oppress a stranger” - You know the feelings of the stranger - how painful it is for the stranger when you oppress them. —Rashi, Shemot 23:9

God does justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, in giving food and clothing. And you will love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. —Targum Yonatan, Devarim 10:18-19

Do not subvert the rights of the stranger, the orphan or the widow. —Targum Yonatan, Devarim 24:17

It has been taught: R. Eliezer the Great said, “Why did the Torah warn against [the wronging of] a ger [stranger/convert] in thirty-six, or as others say, in forty-six, places? Because the ger has an inclination towards evil.” What is the meaning of the verse, You must neither wrong a stranger, nor oppress the stranger; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt? It has been taught: R. Nathan said: Do not taunt your neighbor with the blemish you yourself have. —Baba Metzia 59b

After it says, “Do not oppress” in the plural the language changes to be singular…, for anyone who sees a person oppressing an orphan or a widow and does not come to their aid, they will also be considered oppressors. —Ibn Ezra, Shemot 22:23

Compassion is the feeling of empathy which the pain of one being awakens in another. The higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned they are to re-echo the note of suffering which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart, bringing to all creatures a proof of their kinship in the universal G-d. And as for the human being, whose function it is to show respect and love for G-d’s universe and all its creatures, his heart has been created so tender that it feels with the whole organic world…so that if nothing else, the very nature of his heart must teach him that he is required above everything else to feel himself the brother of all beings, and to recognize the claim of all beings to his love and beneficence (Horeb 17:125). Do not suppress this compassion, this sympathy especially with the sufferings of your fellow man. It is the warning voice of duty, which points out to you your brother in every sufferer, and your own sufferings in his, and awakens the love which tells you that you belong to him and his sufferings with all the powers that you have. Do not suppress it! … See in it the admonition of G-d that you are to have no joy so long as a brother suffers by your side (Horeb 17:126). –Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch

It is evil in the sight of the Holy One, blessed be He, if any of His creatures is despised. —Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Tomer Devorah

Our sages commanded us to visit the non-Jewish sick and to bury the non-Jewish dead along with the Jewish dead, and support the non-Jewish poor along with the Jewish poor for the sake of peace. As it says, “God is good to all and God’s mercies extend over all God’s works” (Psalms 145:9), and “[The Torah’s] ways are pleasant and all its paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). —Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 10:12

Rabbi Yeshoshua ben Korcha says: Anyone who averts their eyes from tzedakah is like one who worships idolatry. It is written here: “Beware lest you harbor the base thought, [‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching’]…” (Deuteronomy 15:9), and it is written there: “Base people have gone out [from among you and subverted the inhabitants of their town]…” (Deuteronomy 13:14); just as there it is idolatry, so here it is idolatry. —Bava Batra 10a

Judaism, if properly understood and properly presented, unites all living things with a bond of love and justice. —Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, The Nineteen Letters

You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you do Mistreat Them, I will Heed Their Outcry as soon as they’ll cry out to Me, and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall Become widows and your Children Orphans. —Shemot 22:20-23

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